“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Write about a time you were betrayed. Or a time you betrayed someone.
You could start with: I felt betrayed . . .
Or write about a time you were silent and now wish you had spoken up.
Or write about a time you could no longer remain silent.
You could start with: I want to tell you about what happened . . .
Write about a lie someone told you, or a lie you told.
White lies, bald-faced lies, untruths, falsehoods, fabrications, whoppers . . . whatever you call ‘em, you have experienced ‘em . . . Now write about ‘em.
Today’s Guest Blogger is Bella Mahaya Carter. I have enjoyed her blog posts. I hope you do, too. Here is one of her inspirational stories.
When I was a film student in the eighties, my then-boyfriend and now-husband, Jim, and I borrowed a professional ¾-inch video camera from school and spent a long, magical afternoon taping an interview with his beloved grandmother. When we finished we had two-and-a-half hours of raw footage that required editing, but we didn’t have the equipment. One day we’ll get around to this, we thought.
A few years later, after we’d married and after his grandmother had died, we wanted to keep her legacy alive by sharing the footage we took of her with the family. We agreed it would make a great holiday gift for Jim’s siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had it transferred to VHS, but when we viewed it, we were painfully reminded that it was raw footage. It needed to be cut. But again, we had no editing equipment, nor funds to rent it.
Years later we reached out to John Crane, a talented filmmaker friend who’d created a beautiful video of his own grandmother, and asked if we could hire him to edit ours. He was busy at the time and couldn’t take on our project, but encouraged us to do it ourselves. “You have a problem with the sound,” he said. “Hear that background hiss?” He told us it could be adjusted if we uploaded the footage to our computer. But Jim had to teach himself iMovie, and despite our best intentions, more years passed by.
The subject of the grandmother video often surfaced right after Thanksgiving, which was our busiest time of year. Taking on a project like that at year’s end seemed impossible. It was this past December when Jim mentioned the grandmother video again. I once again cringed and thought, Yeah, right. We’ll whip it out in all our spare time. Impossible.
But then, a few days later, early one Saturday morning, on the eighth of December, I found myself listening to Michael Neill’s new podcast, Creating the Impossible. I’d read and enjoyed his book with the same title. For his podcast Michael interviewed speaker and author Anita Moorjani. Their discussion was lively and inspiring. When I finished listening, a small voice inside said, What if making that video is not impossible? What if you just think it is? What if it doesn’t have to be perfect? What if you can just crank it out? What if there really is enough time and you only think there isn’t?
Jim’s birthday is the week before Christmas. I knew there was no greater gift I could give him than completing this project.
When he woke up, I announced, “We have a busy weekend.”
“Why?” he asked. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going to crank out the grandmother video.”
He was thrilled. He’d been teaching himself iMovie and had the technical, hands-on editing skills I lacked, but what I hadn’t realized until we tackled this project together was that I had big-picture writing and editing skills that he needed. Although he knew how to use the software, he wasn’t sure how to approach the project. I knew we had to organize the material by first logging the footage and then organizing stories by theme.
We worked 10-hour days for four days and ended up with a half-hour tribute we both liked. And it was fun. It turned out we needed each other’s skills to complete the project. But first I needed to believe this project was possible. It wasn’t until I questioned my thinking, until I believed it could be done, that we accomplished this long-held goal.
Writing is like this. It takes time, sometimes years, as well as the acquisition of skills. Sometimes collaboration is necessary. Writers do well in communities, with support from teachers, coaches, and colleagues. And success is definitely swifter when you leave your limiting thinking alone. When, as Caroline Myss says, you don’t invest your “belief dollars” in limiting or self-defeating thoughts.
I leaned this while keeping my eye on the finish line of my memoir. This time last year I was four months away from publication. I still can’t believe it’s behind me. For years it loomed ahead—it was my future—and now that book launch is my past.
It’s nice to get to the other side of creative dreams and goals, whether personal or professional. And our success is directly related to what we believe about our own thinking.
I’ve started outlining my next book about how to Find Freedom and Peace of Mind While You Write, Publish, and Promote Your Book. The other day I detected a tiny but insidious thought: Who do you think you are writing a book like this? There are many more experienced and worthy writers who could do it. Why you? As a younger, less experienced writer I may have taken that thought at face value. I might have believed it. It may have temporarily stopped me. But I quickly responded: That may be true, but it’s something I want to do. It’ll be fun. I may not be perfect, but who is? The fact is I’m learning and growing all the time and I have tons to say on this topic. Why not me?
Thoughts arise in the mind all the time. I’ve discovered that I can amplify them with my emotions (energy in motion) and belief or tune them out and let them pass. It’s my choice which thoughts to believe.
People create the impossible every day, but to do so, you must believe that you can—despite the naysaying voices within and without.
What “impossible” venture are you ready to create? If it’s a writing project, or if you just want to start writing again, or for the first time, check out my workshops. I’d love to help you create the “impossible.”
Bella’s Personal Story
I’m a poet, author, writing teacher, developmental editor, and empowerment coach who believes in the power of writing to heal and transform lives.
My expertise is in helping students and clients find their voice on the page and in the world. I am passionate about facilitating artistic expression, and my mission is to heal myself and others through creative work.
My memoir, Raw: A Midlife Quest for Health and Happiness.
Book summary:
In an effort to cure chronic stomach problems, I adopted a 100 percent raw, vegan diet, which eased my symptoms and produced impressive, unexpected perks—but didn’t completely heal me. So I looked to my mind for answers, and discovered that unconscious negative thoughts, combined with a stressful, hectic life, were sabotaging my health and happiness.
Anxiety and a desire to heal it holistically—even before I knew what it was—is at the heart of this story, which reveals my struggle to face my fears, release perfectionism, surrender things beyond my control, and find validation within for my life and work.
Divided into three sections—body, mind, and spirit—Raw is a chronicle of my journey, which dragged me, kicking and screaming, into spiritual adulthood.
Prompt: Write about a time you felt different.
If you have time . . . write, using this prompt now. Or, think about a time you felt different. Pause. Take some time to remember,
“Diversity goes deep and is often handled on intellectual and political levels.” —Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others.
Prompt: Generate a list of categories that make us different from one another.
Some ideas: Age – Gender – Socioeconomics – Background – Personality – Married or not – Have children or not – Parents alive or not – Lived/grew up with parents in the home – Vegetarian – Athletic – Bookworm – Seeker – Spiritual – Religious – Have tattoos – Have piercings – Hearing impaired – Race – Tall or short
Prompt: Choose a diversity and write a dialogue between two or three people.
Prompt: Write about someone being hurt as a result of being different.
Possibilities:
Write about a time you were hurt because of being different.
Write about a time you witnessed someone being hurt because of being different: Write in the first person, as you were the person being hurt. Stay in the voice of the person who was being hurt.
Write about witnessing someone being hurt and no one helped, including yourself. A time you saw someone being harassed or treated rudely or meanly and you did mothing.
“I saw this and I did nothing.”
Prompt: Write about a time you felt different.
“The personal essay begins as an act of exploration. We write in order to figure out where we’re going and make sense of where we’ve been.” — Susan Bono
Susan Bono is an extraordinary writer whose words go right to the heart. You can read her excellent writing in her collection of short essays in
What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home.
Susan is a writing teacher and freelance editor specializing in memoir. She facilitates writing workshops at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma. California.
What is it about your life that isn’t satisfying right now? Can you change that?
Brad Yates, one of the top teachers of Emotional Freedom Techniques® (EFT), is today’s guest blogger.
He wrote about “Granting Wishes Incrementally” in his November 2017 free monthly newsletter.
Brad:
Just for a moment, close your eyes, and imagine walking along a beach.
Imagine that you come across a lamp in the sand, and as you brush the sand off it, a puff of smoke emits from the opening, eventually growing and taking the form of a genie.
“I will grant you any wish you desire. What is your command?” the genie says.
So… if you could have a wish granted in this way, what would you ask for?
A huge sum of money? A killer body? A dream vacation?
Give it some thought. Is that what you really want?
Now consider this . . . Would you change your mind if the genie said in response to your request, “Okay, you’ve got it. However, it will take some time and probably some effort on your part?”
Would you say, “Well, if that’s the case, no thanks, I’ll pass?”
If not, then who needs a genie? You can grant your own darn wishes. (And, it’ll be more satisfying.) It’s just that they will be granted incrementally.
The challenge of granting wishes incrementally is that there’s too much room to change your mind. Our actions at one moment may suggest that we are granting our wish of being financially independent, and then later it looks like we are determined to manifest a life of financial struggle.
One moment we are taking great care of our body, and the next we are acting in a way that suggests we wish to be morbidly obese.
I suppose that’s the allure of having a genie grant our wish – it manifests so quickly that we don’t have time to get in the way.
Make a list of things you would ask for if you found a genie who was willing to grant your wishes. Could be a list of three wishes, could be a list of 25 wishes. Or 100. Give yourself permission to think about the things you’d like to have.
Then ask yourself if you would only want them if they could be delivered immediately and without effort.
Ask yourself what you would choose to manifest, no matter how long it would take.
Now notice where you might have conflicting wishes. Desiring fame and fortune is going to be tough if you also desire a quiet life of anonymity. This is where the incremental wish granting gets tricky, because there is too much time to switch back and forth between these contradictory desires.
Consider that this is why you may not have everything you want right now. You have the power of a genie within you… you also have the power to thwart yourself. Not because you are bad or stupid, but because you have contradictory ideas about what you want.
Give yourself permission to choose, and tap to clear any resistance to doing so.
You may also have contradictory ideas about what is safe and/or acceptable to have.
With each item on your list of wishes, close your eyes, imagine having it, and say, “It’s safe to have this…”
Notice what you feel in your body, see how true this feels on a scale of 0 -10. Write that number next to the wish.
You can also check the veracity of such statements as, “It’s okay for me to have this,” and, “I deserve to have this.”
To the extent that it’s not a 10 (and if you haven’t already manifested this, or aren’t already in the process of doing so, it’s a pretty good bet that it’s not a 10…), ask yourself why you couldn’t or shouldn’t have this.
Then take each of those objections and start tapping to clear them. As you do so, you will find greater freedom to do what it takes to get what you want . . . and greater freedom to allow them into your life.
Congratulations, you are now in the process of incrementally granting your own wishes. And the more resistance you clear, the quicker the manifestation.
No genie required. 😉
Brad Yates is the author of the best-selling children’s book “The Wizard’s Wish,” co-author of the best-seller “Freedom at Your Fingertips,” a featured expert in the film “The Tapping Solution,” and has been heard internationally on a number of internet radio talk shows.
Today’s prompt: Pretend.
With this type of prompt, you can also write about the opposite . . .
Let’s not pretend.
Use these words in your freewrite:
Instinct, illustration, melt, eighteenth, obligation, plunge, immune.
Write about a path you took, or a path you didn’t take.
Write about a choice you made.
What do you look like to someone who doesn’t know you?
Do you react, and then act differently because of some input you received from someone?
How important is it to you how others see you?
Write from your well of deep thinking or respond how your fictional character would respond.